THE MIDEAST TALKS: THE OVERVIEW

THE MIDEAST TALKS: THE OVERVIEW; Mideast Talks Show Progress on Final Obstacles

By STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: October 23, 1998

WYE MILLS, Md., Oct. 22—
Critical issues were resolved on Thursday at the Middle East peace talks here, and President Clinton pushed early today to try to close a deal.

Possible solutions emerged on issues that include an agreement by the Palestinians to revise their charter to remove clauses calling for the destruction of Israel and to arrest 30 of 36 Palestinians the Israelis want extradited.

Officials also said a deal on a third withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank, as the Palestinians demand, had been reached.

''There is a clear breakthrough,'' the Israeli Industry Minister, Natan Sharansky, said Thursday night of the talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.

But the deal was not finished as midnight came and went, and a senior American official cautioned that ''until everything is agreed upon, nothing is agreed upon.'' A senior American official said early today that he was ''encouraged, but we have a way to go.''

To try to keep up the momentum, President Clinton asked King Hussein of Jordan to speak to the leaders and their key advisers just after 10 P.M. They all gathered at a dining table overlooking the Wye River and heard Mr. Clinton summarize the state of the talks. The King, ailing with cancer, then delivered what officials called ''an impassioned speech,'' lasting some 10 minutes, calling on Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat to keep making progress and press for peace.

Mr. Clinton's ''spirits are good -- he is determined to stick with this as long as it's a productive use of his time,'' Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman, said late Thursday night. He and James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman, said advances had been made on a number of issues, but that advances did not mean complete resolution.

''On the half dozen serious issues, there have been advances,'' Mr. Rubin said. ''But an advance doesn't mean that it's closed. I've seen them talk for hours over a few words.''

One critical issue apparently resolved involved the Israeli demand that the full Palestine National Council amend the Palestinian charter, formally removing 26 clauses calling for the destruction of Israel.

This issue was finessed, Israeli officials said, when the Palestinians agreed to convene the council along with other Palestinian institutions in the territories at the end of the three-month settlement. The main elements of a deal would be carried out over 12 weeks, or soon after.

American officials say the Palestinian Central Council would vote to amend the charter after eight weeks, while that vote would be ratified informally by ''all relevant bodies'' including parts of the Palestinian National Council.

Both Palestinian and Israeli officials say Mr. Clinton will attend that larger meeting, presumably in Gaza, but there was no immediate confirmation from the White House.

The National Council, which includes expatriate Palestinians, some of whom are wanted as terrorism suspects, will not convene as a whole, officials say, in part because of fears that it could even vote Mr. Arafat out of office. The idea of the larger meeting is to ''bless the whole process in the public way the Israelis wanted,'' an official said.

The key compromise idea came from the Israeli Defense Minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, officials said, and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright sold it to the Palestinians.

Another issue was the Palestinian demand that the Israelis guarantee a separate troop withdrawal from the West Bank, the third called for under the 1993 and 1995 Oslo accords. The Palestinians do not want it to be simply wrapped into talks about a final settlement that would also settle the Palestinian Authority's final boundaries.

A commission of both sides working in parallel with the final peace talks will handle the timing and size of the third ''redeployment,'' or withdrawal, essentially postponing the issue for now. The commission is supposed to report in four months, while the Americans guarantee that a withdrawal will happen. American officials said that by being handled in that way, the issue should not block the peace process later, as the first two deployments have for 19 months now.

The Israeli demand for the extradition of 36 Palestinians -- 31 of them wanted for capital offenses like murder -- was resolved with a Palestinian agreement to arrest 30 of the 31.

Progress was being made on a Palestinian demand that Israel release 3,500 Palestinian prisoners arrested for security offenses, as called for under the Oslo accords. Israel had said it would not release those ''with blood on their hands.'' American officials say that the Israelis have agreed to release ''several hundred'' prisoners, and that this may be enough for a deal.

Still outstanding is the exact method by which Israel will provide safe passage for Palestinians traveling between the West Bank and Gaza.

But the Israelis have agreed, on the issue of security for the Palestinian airport in Gaza, not to search Mr. Arafat's private plane.

Hanging over the talks is Mr. Arafat's threat to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state when the Oslo process ends on May 4, 1999, if there is not significant progress toward a final peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians by then. Mr. Netanyahu has warned Mr. Arafat against such an act, and the Americans say they oppose unilateral acts by either side.